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Bioware Austin, the studio behind Star Wars: The Old Republic, is in the midst of some pretty heavy layoffs. This is all part of EA’s new “restructuring” efforts, which have hit BioWare Austin relatively hard. Bioware has not yet confirmed the number of employees it has let go in this most recent round of layoffs, but Gamasutra reported yesterday that Rich Vogel, executive producer for SWTOR has left the company. Some speculate that these layoffs are partially a result of The Old Republic’s dropping player base. The game is still relatively new and is losing players at a rather steady clip, dropping from 1.7 million to 1.3 million. At E3, a host of new content was announced in the hopes of bringing some players back to the game. Whether or not this will work in the long run is yet to be seen. 
These layoffs don’t actually appear to be affecting SWTOR in a negative way. In fact, EA has said this staff restructuring will actually help SWTOR grow. We will see if that is the case in the coming months. By Angelo M. D’Argenio |